Hard nut Phil is a good egg

According to Regina Brandao, the professor in sports psychology whom Chelsea’s players will almost certainly be meeting soon, there is far more to Luiz Felipe Scolari than his controversial image would suggest.

‘He is nothing like the way some people see him,’ said the woman who has been at Scolari’s side since his days as a club manager in Brazil. ‘He is an egg. Hard on the outside. Soft on the inside.

Touchline antics: Scolari is an animated presence on the touchline

‘He plans everything and he is always worried about how to stimulate his players; how to control the vanities of his players. He does excellent work so the stars and the lesser players are as one.’

Scolari is very much his own man but he taps into Brandao’s expertise at every opportunity. Even when it comes to selecting his captain.

Before arriving in Switzerland with the Portugal squad for the European Championship, Brandao sat down with every player and then delivered a psychological profile to Scolari of each one. As a result, Nuno Gomes was given the captain’s armband with Cristiano Ronaldo appointed as his deputy.

Players who worry Brandao may not last too long under Scolari. One report in Portugal suggested Rui Costa was finished as an international footballer in the wake of a meeting with her, when he apparently told Brandao he saw himself as an individual and not as a team player. An absolute no-no for Big Phil.

Scolari’s trust in Brandao is extraordinary. ‘Regina reached me in a way even my wife, Olga, could not,’ he said. ‘She changed my approach to life and to my job, by getting me to think of my team not as footballers but as men.’

Chelsea appointed Scolari because of his record for getting the best out of quality players and the success he has enjoyed is no accident. Everything is done for a reason: from giving players their own hotel rooms, to the dossiers they receive on their direct opponents.

It all comes on the back of a study by Brandao detailing 77 ways an athlete can suffer from stress. Facing an unfamiliar opponent was one of them, as was a lack of sleep and even arguments with team-mates.

When the meticulous Scolari guided Palmeiras to the Brazilian championship, he dedicated the success to Brandao and she was said to be behind a letter to each Portugal player before Euro 2004. Sensing that they were feeling the pressure of being the host nation, the note appeared under their hotel room doors telling them to play without fear.

Scolari likes his players to relax as much as possible. ‘I want them to be happy and always joking,’ he once said. ‘I like them to follow Ronaldinho’s example and play music on the team bus.’

Chelsea’s players will no doubt appreciate that, just as they will appreciate the way Scolari takes care of them. ‘At the 2002 World Cup he was a fantastic manager and

a fantastic man,’ said Arsenal’s Gilberto Silva. ‘He was like a father to us. It was as if we were all under his arm. He took all the responsibility and shielded us from any negatives. He kept any criticism away from the dressing room and allowed us to play without fear.

‘But for me he was extra special. I was one of the newer players in the squad but he made me feel every bit as important as Ronaldo.’

A deeply spiritual man, Scolari encourages his players to express their faith, which is something certain members of the Chelsea dressing room might struggle with but that could benefit others.

It was interesting how he identified a difference between the Brazilian players he guided to World Cup glory and those from Portugal he then inherited. The Brazilians were comfortable expressing their faith, the Portuguese reluctant. Scolari encouraged them to be open, even organising prayer meetings.

A few months after winning the World Cup, Scolari embarked on a very personal pilgrimage. He returned to Italy, where he now holds a passport, and to his ancestral town of Cologna Veneta in the north of the country.

It was there that his grandfather, Luigi Scolari, was brought up before emigrating — like a great many Italians at the time — to South America and settling in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. In the region today more than 80 per cent of the population — around 1.5million people — are of Venetian descent.

A practising Catholic, Scolari is devoted to Our Lady of Caravaggiossa and prior to Euro 2004 he sent for the images of the Caravaggiossa Virgin and Our Lady of Fatima. It is said that Luis Figo, who had been substituted against England, prayed fervently in front of both of them during the penalty shoot-out.

Scolari certainly has faith in himself. He announced his team for the first game of the 2002 World Cup a month before the tournament and allowed German scouts as well as members of the media to watch every Brazil training session in the build-up to the final in Yokohama.

Such self-confidence impresses fellow managers. ‘I like Scolari,’ Arsene Wenger once remarked. ‘In this job you have to be a positive man and whenever I have met him he has always been positive and charismatic.

‘Maybe because he looks like Gene Hackman. When you meet him you are thinking to yourself: “Why is Gene Hackman talking to me about football?”.’

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Chelsea's stars are about to find out that hard nut Phil is a good egg